Photograph
by ChalexForever
Summary: About 10 years into the future Zola is looking through some old pictures when she stumbles across a picture of Lexie and finally asks Meredith about her. One shot.


**_A/N: I got this idea just sitting at home and doing nothing. I realized that questions about Lexie would probably come up so I decided to write it. Review and enjoy!_**

* * *

**_Photograph_**

_Every memory of walking out the front door_

_I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for_

_It's hard to say it, time to say it_

_Goodbye, goodbye._

Zola had dug up some old pictures from around the house, being the nosy 14 year old that she was that was nothing new. She didn't really have anything to do over summer break so she was bored and decided to try and entertain herself with some pictures just to see what she could find. She flipped through the stack of pictures smiling at them as she looked at old pictures of her and Bailey or of her family. Some of them she remembered taking, others were taken before she was adopted or while she was still really little. There was one specific picture that stuck out to her. It was a picture of her when she was a baby and her Aunt Lexie.

Meredith didn't really talk about Lexie much. Zola knew some things about her but they were pretty vague and she couldn't remember anything about her because she was so little when she died. Talking about Lexie was a topic was a topic that was avoided most of the time just because nobody ever asked and when they did they didn't really feel like digging all that past up. It was avoided mostly because it still hurt to talk about it. All Zola really knew was that she died in the plane crash that her parents were in when she was only a year old. It was the same plane crash that her Uncle Mark died in. She didn't know much about him either. She knew that he wasn't technically her uncle but he was her dad's best friend. She also knew that he was Sofia's father.

"Hey Zo. What are you doing?" Meredith asked as she walked into the room.

"Looking at pictures." Zola said looking up from the picture to her mom.

"Mind if I look?" Meredith asked sitting next to her on the edge of the bed.

Zola shook her head over the stack of pictures to her mom. "I got bored so I went and found these. I hope that's okay."

"Yeah. It's fine." Meredith said looking through the pictures, she stopped when she got to the one of Lexie and Zola. She looked to her daughter who had grown up so much. She would be starting high school this fall and that seemed unreal to her. She looked back to the picture smiling a little at the sight of her sister.

"Mom?" Zola asked. "Will you tell me about Aunt Lexie?"

Meredith was kind of taken aback. She wasn't planning on talking about her sister but she knew that this topic would probably come up eventually. "What do you want to know?"

"I don't know. You just never talk about her. You always brush off those questions. And the questions about Uncle Mark." Zola looked down at the floor under her feet.

"Yeah, I know. I just- it's kind of hard to talk about." Meredith said slowly. "She loved you." Meredith laughed. "She would have spoiled you rotten of she had had the chance before... before everything... She did as much as she could while she was alive though but you were pretty young."

"You really loved her didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did. Not at first but I did. I do."

"Why not at first?" Zola laughed a little.

"Mostly because I didn't know I had a sister and I was confused. I was more surprised than anything."

"That makes sense." Zola nodded. She knew that part too. She knew that Lexie just showed up at the hospital one day and told Meredith that she was her sister, Zola always found that story amusing, but they never really talked about what happened after that. They never talked about what happened that made Meredith actually accept her sister and how they actually became close to one another. "But what happened after that? Like how did you all become like actual sisters?"

"We just got to know each other. I think I realized that I didn't hate her, it wasn't her fault. I realized that it wasn't fair for me to shut her out because she didn't mean for it to happen. We got to know each other, she lived in the house for a while and that was that." Meredith smiled to her daughter as she thought back to Lexie coming up to her and telling her the five things about her that would make Meredith hate her less.

_Meredith was standing at the nurses station finishing up some charts before she headed home for the night, when Lexie walked over to her._

_"I'm not stalking you. I just... I hate apples." Lexie stated matter of factly as Meredith looked over to her. "Hate them. Think they shouldn't be allowed to be a fruit. That's one. And... and two, I can draw really, really well on an etch a sketch. Like, really well, like I could be a professional if, you know, that profession existed. I play the trombone... badly. Uh, I like Math. And I notice that you do this thing with your hands when you're trying to make a point, like... like... like this. And I know that that's about you, but I ... I do it, too. So it's also about me. And that's five. Five things that I'm hoping will make it a little bit harder for you to hate me."_

_Meredith looked over to her as the brunette walked away. It was almost like she felt guilty that Lexie thought she hated her. In a way, she did. It wasn't Lexie's fault that their father started a new family and neglected to contact her. She shouldn't blame her. It wasn't right, and she didn't really know why she did it._

"It was a work in progress but we finally got really close." Meredith said looking at Zola.

"How long did that take?" Zola asked as she kept looking through some of the pictures.

"I'm not exactly sure how long but it was probably longer than it should have taken."

"What was it like? The plane crash? How did she... you know?" Zola trailed off at the end of her sentence. She wasn't even sure that her mom would tell her stuff like that. about how brutal the plane crash was or how her aunt died in it. She wasn't sure she would get that information but she thought it wouldn't hurt to ask anyway, because honestly, she really did want to know.

Meredith hesitated. She didn't want to scare her daughter or tell her something that would make her not want to get on planes or scar her in any way. "It was scary." Meredith stated. "One second we were in the air on the way to a surgery in Boise and the next we were all scattered in the woods. I couldn't find your Dad or Aunt Lexie at first so I went to look for your dad and Aunt Cristina and Uncle Mark to find Aunt Lexie. I couldn't find anything so I went back to where most of the plane was and found Cristina and she told me to go with her. When we got back to Mark and Lexie she was already gone. She got stuck under the plane and there was no way we could have saved her. We didn't have anything to even attempt saving her."

"Did you try to move the plane?"

"We did but it was too heavy. We couldn't move it."

"Oh," Zola said quietly with a small nod.

_"Cristina." Meredith called after her best friend coming back from the forest where their plane had just crashed. Cristina turned around quickly. "I can't find him. I looked everywhere. I can't find him."_

_"Maybe he's fine." Cristina tried to comfort. "Maybe he went for help."_

_"Maybe but I gotta- I gotta keep looking."_

_"No, Meredith, you should come. Help Lexie." Meredith studied her friend's face when she said that it was Lexie. Her heart fell to her feet. She couldn't stand the thought of her sister being in such a bad spot that she needed to go help her. She didn't know what to expect from this. She didn't know how bad it was or what happened but she could tell by the look on Cristina's face that it was bad._

_Meredith followed closely behind Cristina as she led her to where Lexie was. When the arrived at the wreckage and Meredith saw Mark laying there next to part of the plane with Lexie underneath it, she knew. Her sister was gone. It was over. She wasn't coming back from this crash alive. There was nothing she could do. The only thing she could do was sit on the ground and cry. The relationship with her sister definitely didn't start well. That whole thing was a disaster at the beginning but over the past few years they became as close as they would have been if they had spent their whole lives together. Having that relationship torn from her was worse than a shot to the chest. Right now, she wanted her sister back and that was the one person she couldn't have back._

"So, Uncle Mark was with her when she died?" Zola asked.

"Yeah, he was." Meredith nodded. "I kind of can't believe that I tried to keep them away from each other."

"You tried to keep them away from each other? Why?" Zola asked. From what she had heard they were perfect for each other.

"I don't know. I just didn't want her to get hurt." Meredith stated. "I was protecting her."

"From Uncle Mark?"

"He wasn't the best at relationships. Until Lexie came along. That changed him." Meredith stated.

"That's, like, kind of adorable." Zola laughed looking at a picture of her aunt and uncle. Meredith and Derek had kept some pictures Lexie had after she died.

_Meredith and Derek were at lunch together and talking just like most days. "So, are you going to tell me about the adventures of Death and Die?" Derek asked Meredith._

_"Nope, but I did talk to Lexie for you." Meredith stated. "And now I need you to do something for me."_

_"What's that?"_

_"I need you to tell Mark to keep his Little Sloan out of Little Grey."_

_"Was he hitting on you?" Derek asked quickly probably more ready to kill his best friend more than anything._

_"No, not my little Grey, Lexie's little Grey." Meredith stated. "I don't know what's going on with her, but the last thing she needs is Sloan going all man-whore on her. So, you need to tell him to step away from Little Grey." Meredith didn't really trust Mark. Especially not with her sister. Her first instinct was to protect her._

_"I'll see what I can do."_

_"Little Grey, Derek... Little Grey." Meredith stated._

"Did I answer all of your questions?" Meredith asked as she stood up from the bed and started walking toward the door.

"Yeah, I think so." Meredith almost had her hand on the door handle when Zola stopped her. "Mom, wait."

"Yeah?"

"Do you think Aunt Lexie and Uncle Mark would have been together? Or do you think they are somehow together now?"

"I think so." Meredith smiled. "I think they were meant to be together." Zola smiled to her mom as she left.


End file.
